Richard
P. Feynman was one of the all-time greats of science. I reproduce here the transcript of a talk he gave at the Caltech YMCA
Lunch Forum on May 2, 1956.
THE
RELATION OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Some fresh observations on an
old problem
In this age of specialization
men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss
another. The great problems of the relations
between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been
discussed less and less in public. When
we look at the past great debates on these subjects we feel jealous of those
times, for we should have liked the excitement of such argument. The old problems, such as the relation of
science and religion, are still with us, and I believe present as difficult
dilemmas as ever, but they are not often publicly discussed because of the
limitations of specialization.
But I have been interested in
this problem for a long time and would like to discuss it. In view of my very evident lack of knowledge
and understanding of religion (a lack which will grow more apparent as we
proceed), I will organize the discussion in this way: I will suppose that not
one man but a group of men are discussing the problem, that the group consists
of specialists in many fields – the various sciences, the various religions and
so on – and that we are going to discuss the problem from various sides, like a
panel. Each is to give his point of
view, which may be molded and modified by the later discussion. Further, I imagine that someone has been
chosen by lot to be the first to present his views, and I am he so chosen.
I would start by presenting
the panel with a problem: A young man, brought up in a religious family,
studies a science, and as a result he comes to doubt – and perhaps later to
disbelieve in – his father's God. Now,
this is not an isolated example; it happens time and time again. Although I have no statistics on this, I
believe that many scientists – in fact, I actually believe that more than half
of the scientists – really disbelieve in their father's God; that is, they
don't believe in a God in a conventional sense.
Now, since the belief in a God
is a central feature of religion, this problem that I have selected points up
most strongly the problem of the relation of science and religion. Why does this young man come to disbelieve?
The first answer we might hear
is very simple: You see, he is taught by scientists, and (as I have just
pointed out) they are all atheists at heart, so the evil is spread from one to
another. But if you can entertain this
view, I think you know less of science than I know of religion.
Another answer may be that a
little knowledge is dangerous; this young man has learned a little bit and
thinks he knows it all, but soon he will grow out of this sophomoric
sophistication and come to realize that the world is more complicated, and he
will begin again to understand that there must be a God.
I don't think it is necessary
that he come out of it. There are many
scientists – men who hope to call themselves mature – who still don't believe
in God. In fact, as I would like to
explain later, the answer is not that the young man thinks he knows it all – it
is the exact opposite.
A third answer you might get
is that this young man really doesn't understand science correctly. I do not believe that science can disprove
the existence of God; I think that is impossible. And if it is impossible, is not a belief in
science and in a God – an ordinary God of religion — a consistent possibility?
Yes, it is consistent. Despite the fact that I said that more than
half of the scientists don't believe in God, many scientists do believe
in both science and God, in a perfectly consistent way. But this consistency, although possible, is
not easy to attain, and I would like to try to discuss two things: Why it is
not easy to attain, and whether it is worth attempting to attain it.
When I say "believe in
God," of course, it is always a puzzle – what is God? What I mean is the kind of personal God,
characteristic of the western religions, to whom you pray and who has something
to do with creating the universe and guiding you in morals.
For the student, when he
learns about science, there are two sources of difficulty in trying to weld
science and religion together. The first
source of difficulty is this – that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is
absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a
fundamental part of your inner nature.
To make progress in understanding we must remain modest and allow that
we do not know. Nothing is certain or
proved beyond all doubt. You investigate
for curiosity, because it is unknown, not because you know the
answer. And as you develop more
information in the sciences, it is not that you are finding out the truth, but
that you are finding out that this or that is more or less likely.
That is, if we investigate further,
we find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not
true, but statements of what is known to different degrees of certainty:
"It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not
true;" or "such and such is almost certain but there is still a
little bit of doubt;" or – at the other extreme – "well, we really
don't know." Every one of the
concepts of science is on a scale graduated somewhere between, but at neither
end of, absolute falsity or absolute truth.
It is necessary, I believe, to
accept this idea, not only for science, but also for other things; it is of
great value to acknowledge ignorance. It
is a fact that when we make decisions in our life we don't necessarily know
that we are making them correctly; we only think that we are doing the best we
can – and that is what we should do.
Attitude of uncertainty
I think that when we know that
we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great
value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of
uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which
the student must first acquire. It
becomes a habit of thought. Once
acquired, one cannot retreat from it any more.
What happens, then, is that
the young man begins to doubt everything because he cannot have it as absolute
truth. So the question changes a little
bit from "Is there a God?" to "How sure is it that there is a
God?" This very subtle change is a
great stroke and represents a parting of the ways between science and
religion. I do not believe a real
scientist can ever believe in the same way again. Although there are scientists who believe in
God, I do not believe that they think of God in the same way as religious
people do. If they are consistent with
their science, I think that they say something like this to themselves: "I
am almost certain there is a God. The
doubt is very small." That is quite
different from saying, "I know that there is a God." I do not believe that a scientist can ever
obtain that view – that really religious understanding, that real knowledge
that there is a God – that absolute certainty which religious people have.
Of course this process of
doubt does not always start by attacking the question of the existence of
God. Usually special tenets, such as the
question of an after‑life, or details of the religious doctrine, such as
details of Christ's life, come under scrutiny first. It is more interesting, however, to go right
into the central problem in a frank way, and to discuss the more extreme view
which doubts the existence of God.
Once the question has been
removed from the absolute, and gets to sliding on the scale of uncertainty, it
may end up in very different positions.
In many cases it comes out very close to being certain. But on the other hand, for some, the net
result of close scrutiny of the theory his father held of God may be the claim
that it is almost certainly wrong.
Belief in God – and the facts
of science
That brings us to the second
difficulty our student has in trying to weld science and religion: Why does it
often end up that the belief in God – at least, the God of the religious type –
is considered to be very unreasonable, very unlikely? I think that the answer has to do with the
scientific things – the facts or partial facts – that the man learns.
For instance, the size of the
universe is very impressive, with us on a tiny particle whirling around the
sun, among a hundred thousand million suns in this galaxy, itself among a
billion galaxies.
Again, there is the close
relation of biological man to the animals, and of one form of life to
another. Man is a latecomer in a vast
evolving drama; can the rest be but a scaffolding for his creation?
Yet again, there are the atoms
of which all appears to be constructed, following immutable laws. Nothing can escape it; the stars are made of
the same stuff, and the animals are made of the same stuff, but in such complexity
as to mysteriously appear alive – like man himself.
It is a great adventure to
contemplate the universe beyond man, to think of what it means without man – as
it was for the great part of its long history, and as it is in the great
majority of places. When this objective
view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are
appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to
see life as part of the universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an
experience which is rarely described. It
usually ends in laughter, delight in the futility of trying to understand. These scientific views end in awe and
mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so
impressive that the theory that it is all arranged simply as a stage for God to
watch man's struggle for good and evil seems to be inadequate.
So let us suppose that this is
the case of our particular student, and the conviction grows so that he
believes that individual prayer, for example, is not heard. (I am not trying to disprove the reality of
God; I am trying to give you some idea of – some sympathy for – the reasons why
many come to think that prayer is meaningless.)
Of course, as a result of this doubt, the pattern of doubting is turned
next to ethical problems, because, in the religion which he learned, moral
problems were connected with the word of God, and if the God doesn't exist,
what is his word? But rather
surprisingly, I think, the moral problems ultimately come out relatively
unscathed; at first perhaps the student may decide that a few little things
were wrong, but he often reverses his opinion later, and ends with no
fundamentally different moral view.
There seems to be a kind of
independence in these ideas. In the end,
it is possible to doubt the divinity of Christ, and yet to believe firmly that
it is a good thing to do unto your neighbor as you would have him do unto
you. It is possible to have both these
views at the same time; and I would say that I hope you will find that my
atheistic scientific colleagues often carry themselves well in society.
Communism and the scientific
viewpoint
I would like to remark, in
passing, since the word "atheism" is so closely connected with
"communism," that the communist views are the antithesis of the scientific,
in the sense that in communism the answers are given to all the questions –
political questions as well as moral ones – without discussion and without
doubt. The scientific viewpoint is the
exact opposite of this; that is, all questions must be doubted and discussed;
we must argue everything out – observe things, check them, and so change
them. The democratic government is much
closer to this idea, because there is discussion and a chance of modification. One doesn't launch the ship in a definite direction. It is true that if you have a tyranny of
ideas, so that you know exactly what has to be true, you act very decisively,
and it looks good – for a while. But
soon the ship is heading in the wrong direction, and no one can modify the
direction any more. So the uncertainties
of life in a democracy are, I think, much more consistent with science.
Although science makes some
impact on many religious ideas, it does not affect the moral content. Religion has many aspects; it answers all
kinds of questions. First, for example,
it answers questions about what things are, where they come from, what man is,
what God is – the properties of God, and so on.
Let me call this the metaphysical aspect of religion. It also tells us another thing – how to behave. Leave out of this the idea of how to behave
in certain ceremonies, and what rites to perform; I mean it tells us how to
behave in life in general, in a moral way.
It gives answers to moral questions; it gives a moral and ethical
code. Let me call this the ethical
aspect of religion.
Now, we know that, even with
moral values granted, human beings are very weak; they must be reminded of the
moral values in order that they may be able to follow their consciences. It is not simply a matter of having a right
conscience; it is also a question of maintaining strength to do what you know
is right. And it is necessary that
religion give strength and comfort and the inspiration to follow these moral
views. This is the inspirational aspect
of religion. It gives inspiration not
only for moral conduct – it gives inspiration for the arts and for all kinds of
great thoughts and actions as well.
Interconnections
These three aspects of
religion are interconnected, and it is generally felt, in view of this close
integration of ideas, that to attack one feature of the system is to attack the
whole structure. The three aspects are
connected more or less as follows: The moral aspect, the moral code, is the
word of God – which involves us in a metaphysical question. Then the inspiration comes because one is
working the will of God; one is for God; partly one feels that one is with
God. And this is a great inspiration
because it brings one's actions in contact with the universe at large.
So these three things are very
well interconnected. The difficulty is
this: that science occasionally conflicts with the first of the three
categories – the metaphysical aspect of religion. For instance, in the past there was an
argument about whether the earth was the center of the universe – whether the
earth moved around the sun or stayed still.
The result of all this was a terrible strife and difficulty, but it was
finally resolved – with religion retreating in this particular case. More recently there was a conflict over the
question of whether man has animal ancestry.
The result in many of these
situations is a retreat of the religious metaphysical view, but nevertheless,
there is no collapse of the religion.
And further, there seems to be no appreciable or fundamental change in
the moral view.
After all, the earth moves
around the sun – isn't it best to turn the other cheek? Does it make any difference whether the earth
is standing still or moving around the sun?
We can expect conflict again.
Science is developing and new things will be found out which will he in
disagreement with the present‑day metaphysical theory of certain
religions. In fact, even with all the
past retreats of religion, there is still real conflict for particular
individuals when they learn about the science and they have heard about the
religion. The thing has not been
integrated very well; there are real conflicts here – and yet morals are not
affected.
As a matter of fact, the
conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but
even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an
attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the
certainty and faith that is demanded in religion. There is definitely a conflict, I believe –
both in fact and in spirit – over the metaphysical aspects of religion.
In my opinion, it is not
possible for religion to find a set of metaphysical ideas which will be
guaranteed not to get into conflicts with an ever‑advancing and always‑changing
science which is going into an unknown.
We don't know how to answer the questions; it is impossible to find an
answer which someday will not be found to be wrong. The difficulty arises because science and
religion are both trying to answer questions in the same realm here.
Science and moral questions
On the other hand, I don't
believe that a real conflict with science will arise in the ethical aspect,
because I believe that moral questions are outside of the scientific realm.
Let me give three or four
arguments to show why I believe this. In
the first place, there have been conflicts in the past between the scientific
and the religious view about the metaphysical aspect and, nevertheless, the
older moral views did not collapse, did not change.
Second, there are good men who
practice Christian ethics and who do not believe in the divinity of
Christ. They find themselves in no
inconsistency here.
Thirdly, although I believe
that from time to time scientific evidence is found which may be partially
interpreted as giving some evidence of some particular aspect of the life of
Christ, for example, or of other religious metaphysical ideas, it seems to me
that there is no scientific evidence bearing on the golden rule. It seems to me that that is somehow
different.
Now, let's see if I can make a
little philosophical explanation as to why it is different – how science cannot
affect the fundamental basis of morals.
The typical human problem, and
one whose answer religion aims to supply, is always of the following form:
Should I do this? Should we do
this? Should the government do this? To answer this question we can resolve it
into two parts: First — If I do this, what will happen? – and second – Do I
want that to happen? What would come of
it of value – of good?
Now a question of the form: If
I do this, what will happen? is strictly scientific. As a matter of fact, science can be defined
as a method for, and a body of information obtained by, trying to answer only
questions which can be put into the form: If I do this, what will happen? The technique of it, fundamentally, is: Try
it and see. Then you put together a
large amount of information from such experiences. All scientists will agree that a question –
any question, philosophical or other – which cannot be put into the form that
can be tested by experiment (or, in simple terms, that cannot be put into the
form: If I do this, what will happen?) is not a scientific question; it is
outside the realm of science.
I claim that whether you want
something to happen or not – what value there is in the result, and how you judge
the value of the result (which is the other end of the question: Should I do
this?) – must lie outside of science because it is not a question that you can
answer only by knowing what happens; you still have to judge what
happens – in a moral way. So, for this
theoretical reason I think that there is a complete consistency between the
moral view – or the ethical aspect of religion – and scientific information.
Turning to the third aspect of
religion – the inspirational aspect – brings me to the central question that I
would like to present to this imaginary panel.
The source of inspiration today – for strength and for comfort – in any
religion is very closely knit with the metaphysical aspect; that is, the inspiration
comes from working for God, for obeying his will, feeling one with God. Emotional ties to the moral code – based in
this manner – begin to be severely weakened when doubt, even a small amount of
doubt, is expressed as to the existence of God; so when the belief in God
becomes uncertain, this particular method of obtaining inspiration fails.
I don't know the answer to
this central problem – the problem of maintaining the real value of religion,
as a source of strength and of courage to most men, while, at the same time,
not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical aspects.
The heritages of Western
civilization
Western civilization, it seems
to me, stands by two great heritages.
One is the scientific spirit of adventure – the adventure into the
unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored;
the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered;
the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it – the humility of the
intellect. The other great heritage is
Christian ethics – the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the
value of the individual – the humility of the spirit.
These two heritages are
logically, thoroughly consistent. But
logic is not all; one needs one's heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion, what
are they going back to? Is the modern
church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts God ‑ more, one who
disbelieves in God? Is the modern church
a place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts? So far, have we not drawn strength and
comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way
which attacks the values of the other?
Is this unavoidable? How can we
draw inspiration to support these two pillars of western civilization so that
they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time?
I put it up to the panel for
discussion.
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